The Wii U Is The Perfect Second Console

Editor’s Note: More than a year out for each of the newest batch of game consoles, I wanted staffers to give their honest pitches for each of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft’s 8th generation platforms. Today, we are following up after showcasing the Xbox One and the PS4 with my thoughts on picking up a Wii U. 

The excellence of the Wii U is hidden underneath its polarization. There’s no better console on the market right now that touches the quality of first party exclusives like the Wii U does. It can natively play hundreds of games from Nintendo’s previous generation console, launching its library to an impressive count. The way the console operates acts as uniquely as a next-gen property as possible. There’s no reason you shouldn’t pick one up this holiday season.

Well, except if you don’t own a gaming PC, PS4 or Xbox One as well.

Excellent Gaming Properties

Owning a Wii U means that you will be getting access to some of the best exclusives in the business. It will be a cold day in hell before Nintendo spins themselves off and go 3rd party, so that means it’s nigh likely that you will see Mario, Link, Samus, Star Fox, Donkey Kong or characters from the Fire Emblem series pop up on the PS4 and Xbox One. When it comes to establishing an identity for a console, uniqueness and variety in the gaming library becomes a huge factor.

When you think about the AAA exclusives currently available from the PS4 and Xbox One, what prominently jumps to mind is “shooters.” In this bubble you will find the likes of Titanfall, Killzone: Shadow Fall, Resogun, The Last of Us Remastered, Crimson Dragon, Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Sunset Overdrive. While some of these are well-regarded games, and it’s not like you won’t find other types of games on competing platforms, you won’t nearly find a better genre mix of notable exclusives than with Nintendo’s newest console.

For platform enthusiasts, you have Super Mario 3D World and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze to sate your appetite. Character action game fans have Bayonetta 2 and The Wonderful 101 to provide the tight gameplay mechanics and skilled combat. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and Mario vs Donkey Kong look to fill your puzzle gaming needs in the future, alongside RTS/Puzzle title Pikmin 3 and console-exclusive Scribblenauts Unlimited available now. Super Smash Bros for Wii U provides countless hours of near-perfect party/fighting fun. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD is a great way to integrate oneself in the action-adventure sensibilities of playing as Link, outside of using him as a racer in Mario Kart 8.

There’s a great deal of quality exclusive titles on the Wii U, spread across a wide spectrum of genre types. Plus, with titles like Splatoon, Zelda Wii U, Mario Party 10, Xenoblade Chronicles X, a new Star Fox game, Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem Yoshi’s Woolly World, Devil’s Third, Mario Maker, plus Kirby and the Rainbow Curse reportedly coming next year, Nintendo looks to stay true to themselves while maintaining their ongoing standard of excellence.

Playing Nintendo Games Throughout The Ages

Nintendo has been around as a console gaming business for four decades now. Because of their expansive library, they have a deep well to dig through in order to entertain their Wii U gaming fans today. The best way they accomplish this is through native backwards compatibility for the Wii, something that neither the PS4 nor Xbox One can provide. But when you also consider the digital gaming infrastructure set in place for the Wii U compared to its competition, in the ability to play digital downloads of classic games, the Wii U mops the floor with them.

Using the Wii remotes, entering Nintendo Wii games and WiiWare of the like means enjoying dozens of titles Wii owner still have without having to re-purchase them digitally. It extends the value of the gaming platform a great deal when you can pop in the Metroid Prime series while waiting for another Metroid title to be released, in addition to countless other Wii games. It also serves as an effective means of avoiding stagnation of game releases, as the Wii U enjoys a fewer selection of current-gen titles (more on that later).

More importantly, Wii U’s virtual console and eShop combine to offer way more experiences from the earlier days of Nintendo glory. While new Castlevania, F-Zero, Mega Man, Earthbound, Pac Man, Advance Wars and Little Mac titles have been absent from Nintendo’s consoles for a great while, excellent entries from the NES, SNES, Gameboy and Gameboy Advance available for purchase. It’s a great way for younger Wii U owners to play and learn from classic titles that they may not have been able to play with before.

There are numerous ways to play Nintendo games on the Wii U. The PS4, nor the Xbox One, can offer anywhere close to the same amount of offerings at this time, nor does it seem to be a priority at the moment. There’s also no real support to transfer games content from the previous gen to the current gen quite like the Wii U can. Nintendo, in this regard, far better serves the consumer when it comes to classic gaming content on newer platforms.

Next: Wii U Is Unique, But Missing Out On Crucial Games